I’ve passed the house of Mrs. Revere
Often enough when her windows were open
To know she’d rather listen to Schubert
Most evenings than watch whatever the networks
Are beaming into her neighbors’ homes.Now that she’s lived, as I have, far longer
Than twice Schubert’s 31 years,
I wonder if she’d be willing, as I tell myself
I would be, to subtract some of the time still left her
If it could be carried back to his eraAnd added to his scant sum.
Who left his pair of genuine-leather holsters,
Tooled for cowboy cap guns, outside in the rain?
A question my father had to contend with one morning
Some seventy summers ago in Missouri.
He stood in the driveway, late for the office,
Seersucker jacket over one arm,
And weighed his options.
Who left his pair of genuine-leather holsters,
Tooled for cowboy cap guns, outside in the rain?
A question my father had to contend with one morning
Some seventy summers ago in Missouri.
He stood in the driveway, late for the office,
Seersucker jacket over one arm,
And weighed his options.
Lucky no one got hurt when I failed
To notice that another car had entered
The traffic circle before me, but not so lucky
When my car was declared not worth repairing.Lucky my car made no accusations
About the many more years of driving
We might have enjoyed together if only
I’d remembered to look where I was going.No way to explain to a car, which always waits
Just where you leave it, the human capacity
To drift in thought away from the body
Just when the body is in need of guidance.
Illustrations by Miki LoweCarl Dennis doesn’t tend to focus his writing on death, love, and the Big Questions. His poetry serves as a reminder—perhaps especially to people who see the form as melodramatic—that not every line of verse needs to take itself so seriously. Instead, his sweet spot is in the small things—“the minor efforts, the daily or weekly rewards and tasks that make up most of any life,” as the poet Stephanie Burt put it.